to take different views. This might be concluded a priori, but admits not of a doubt, when the fact is observed, that whenever the claims imposed by Catholic councils, which kept the whole Christian world in ignorant uniformity, were burst, Protestant Christendom, in obedience to the free scope of the faculties, split into divisions and subdivisions of interpretation, which have gradually increased in number to nearly one hundred. Now, it is the grand error of the Church of Rome to deny that the Scriptures were at all addressed to the human understanding, or any right of judgment given to man; while it is the grand abuse of that system to attempt by force, by pains and penalties, to produce conformity to one, and that its own, standard. On this ground chiefly the Protestant reformers took their stand, protesting against the infallibility of the Romanists, and for the irresponsibility of any human being for his belief but to his God, or, as it is called, the right of private judgment in interpreting the Scriptures,—a right, too, claimed with all the risk, nay the certainty, that, from the very nature of the human faculties, interpretations left free must and would be various. If this variety were fatal to genuine and sincere practical religion, the causes of it would not have been in the Divine works and ways; if it should exclude any conscientious interpreter from Divine favour, then would not the Evangelist of the Apocalypse have beheld "a great multitude which no man could number of ALL nations and kindreds, and people and tongues, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." All this is admitted abstractly by the most popish of Protestants, when you find him calm; yet no doctrine is more belied by him practically. It has become trite to say, that scarcely was the right of private judgment vindicated by the Reformers, than they, the reformers themselves, began to deny it to others. Persecution for conscience-sake soon shewed its hoof. contented with freedom from the thraldom of popish power, Protestants, in power themselves, have waged war against the most abstract catholic opinions, have long persecuted Catholics with disabilities, and have lately revived the persecuting spirit against them with sudden and violent rancour; in other words, have turned papists, in the worst sense of the word, themselves. A jealous dogmatism, since the Reformation, has endeavoured to chain down the faculties of man to certain views; and has denied practically, what is weekly recommended in theory from the pulpit, the right to interpret, as following the duty to search, the Scriptures. This persecution is not the less real in fact, or less popish in spirit, because there is in Protestant countries no power to torture, hang, and burn, for opinions. To say nothing of a wide field yet open Not at law for punishing the unavoidable conclusions of the faculties called opinions, there is an incalculable amount of persecution perpetrated by the tongue and the pen. Character is stabbed in secret by the most unchristian censoriousness and slander, and denounced in public, yet more boldly, by loud appeals to the mob, by reproachful names, or rather the reproachful use of the names denominating distinctions of opinion, -one of the basest forms of injustice, and as we have recently seen with absolute disgust, by raising the mad-dog cry of "infidel" against every opponent, even in matters of tithes and church government. It cannot be too strongly inculcated that all means of propagating Christianity but those of reason and moral feeling, are not only against Nature, but against Christianity itself. Away with the drivelling of those whose Self-Esteem and Combativeness persuade them that fighting is yet, and always will be, necessary for the propagation and defence of Christianity, and that they, forsooth, are God's champions, whose religion will fall unless they prop it up; that the "good fight" is to be fought against their fellow men, and not, as in its true meaning, against their own internal corruptions, against their very fighting propensities. They will ask you-Where should we have been but for the combats of the Reformers themselves? No fallacy can be more gross. The Reformers fought against tyranny, against the very abuses which they are doing their zealous but feeble endeavours to re-establish. But where is the use of continuing the battle after the victory is two hundred years won? The folly of this course is manifest in its signal failure to do any kind of good. The very attempt should be indictable matter against a Protestant minister, relevant to deprive him of his abused office; that those only may be left in religion's service whose dispositions and lights prompt them to use the proper Christian weapons, conviction and persuasion, and, the beautiful handmaid of these, Charity towards all men. We are delighted to adduce a witness to the truth of the same views, from a quarter where we should least expect to find one,-from popish, and we should have believed intolerant, Austria. We quote from a work in three volumes, the second edition of which was published in Vienna in 1813,* by Dr Reyberger, a Benedictine Abbot, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Vienna, and Book-Censor; a work characterised thoughout by a liberal and tolerant spirit, which would better become many over zealous Protestants than their actual manifestations. "Christ himself," says Dr Reyberger," in promulgating his doctrines, * Institutiones Ethicæ, Christianæ seu Theologiæ Moralis. made use of no means but what were adapted to persuade men, and held in abhorrence all violence and coercion. Many persons have interpreted the saying of Christ-" Compel them to enter," (Luke xiv. 23.)—in an unfavourable sense, and supposed the meaning was, that those who refused to join the church ought to be compelled; but Christ speaks of no other violence in compelling them to the nuptials than that which is used in asking, exhorting, and warmly urging. For the Greek word anagkothein (Matth. xiv. 22; Mark, vi. 45; Gal. ii. 11) has the same signification as parabiâthoumai (Luke, xxiv. 29), which alone, also, agrees with the text of the parable. And it is sufficiently obvious, from his character, that no belief or persuasion is to be desired from a Christian man except such as is voluntary, and is sealed by the consent of his reason (1 Thess. v. and Rom. xiv.; 1 Peter, iii. 15. and Rom. xiii.) Therefore, in affairs of religion, nothing is to be conceded to authority, nothing to the fear of man (Matth. x. 22; Rev. xv. 18, 19; Acts, iv. 19, 29), but every man is bound to follow the guidance of his own conscience, because every man will render an account only to God of his conscience (Rom. xiv. 12; 1 Cor. iii. 8; Gal. iv. 4.) Hence we are warranted in concluding that it is our duty to tolerate, in a friendly manner, those who differ from us in matters of religion, to reverence their conscience, and never to condemn them on account of their faith (Matth. vii. 1; Rom. ii. 1; Cor. iv. 5), or exclude them from the benefit of our charity (Luke, x. 30); and that we ought, least of all, to injure their rights and liberties by any infringement of them, or violence." The author refers at every step, not only to the Scriptures, but to the fathers of the church. The work is intended for the use of colleges and academies, and is a text-book for countries containing little short of all the Protestants of Europe taken together. 66 To any one who has perused the above passage, and verified all the texts to which it refers, which are all and each in perfect accordance with the conclusions of sound philosophy, the present state of the religious world must appear in any thing but a satisfactory light. A tyrannical dogmatism, a "rainpant" orthodoxy, tolerates no interpretations, no opinions, differing, even by a shade, from its own; denounces with acrimony, as infidel, all attempts, however conscientious and benevolent, intellectually to enlighten, morally to elevate, and even religiously to improve, mankind in any way differing from theirs, even in the mere arrangement; dooms, so far as their power extends, to a kind of social proscription, and consequent patrimonial ruin, men who are spreading philosophical truth, calculated to humanize mankind, and render Christianity no longer a form, but a practical principle in beautiful accordance with Nature;* whose pages glow with the purest love of their fellow men, and shine with the clearest guidance in the path of temporal, one earnest of eternal, happiness. Who, moreover, if they do touch Scriptural truths, use but the right which the Scriptures themselves bestow, of understanding these according to their conscientious convictions. A calmer, better educated, more moral, generation will review the sentence with which it has been vainly attempted to crush such benefactors of their species; while those who have pronounced it will, along with their own convictions, account for that sentence to their God, whether they have done good or evil. But it is in the spirit of bigotry, intolerance, and attempted persecution towards other sects, nay towards those who differ from them, not on Scriptural interpretation at all, but upon the way and manner of temporal provisions, which degrades too many religious professors in the three kingdoms of this empire, that the contrast with a spirit more consistent with Nature and Scripture is most painfully glaring. It is a disgusting task to read the publications, and hear the declamations, of professed ministers of Christ, against these their bre thren, recriminations thrown back, reproaches heaped, the lie given, defiance hurled, vengeance denounced, judgments allotted, perdition almost invoked! There are, of course, individuals more prominent in these unchristian enactments, while many deeply deplore the suicidal course which they pursue. A glance is sufficient to convince a phrenological eye that in these platform combatants there is the animal organization of the genuine gladiator. In barbarous times—if we are yet entitled to call our own civilised-these men would have figured as the warriors of personal prowess; but we are civilised enough "What * Paley's words on this point should be made a religious lesson. ever renders religion more rational, renders it more credible; he who, by a diligent and faithful examination of the original records dismisses from the system one article which contradicts the apprehension, the experience, or the reasoning of mankind, does more towards recommending the belief, and, with the belief, the influence, of Christianity, to the understandings and consciences of serious inquirers, and through them to universal reception and authority, than can be effected by a thousand contenders for creeds and ordinances of human establishment." We are in possession of a fact which, in the most striking manner, confirms Paley's opinion. At the end of the Lectures on Mental, Moral, and Educational Philosophy, delivered by Mr Simpson to the Working Classes of Edinburgh in the winter of 1835, in which it was his practice to confirm the precepts of natural ethics by Scriptural authority, he was visited by a young man, one of his hearers, who told him that that method had so powerfully convinced himself and others his companions, who entertained infidel opinions, that Nature and Scripture were from the same God, that they were again reading their Bibles. How long would it be before the abstractions usually given as religious instruction produced such an effect! to limit them now to effusions, spoken and written, of insolence, pride, intolerance, and violence. Their very voices, true to the well observed pathognomy and natural language of the faculties, are harsh and loud, and their gesticulations and whole manner coarse, noisy, and threatening. See any of these men in the heat of platform or pulpit combat, and then carry back the thoughts to the serene Master whom they profess to serve and to glorify, who never uttered an angry word, save against hypocrisy, and instantly repressed violence whenever in his presence it was either proposed or attempted! The lesson is awful! How long shall it remain of none effect on more temperate religious men? When will they disown the prize-fighters, as well stationary as itinerant? When will they practically believe that "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God ?" ARTICLE II. COPY OF A LETTER FROM MR THOMAS MORGAN TO MR H. C. WATSON, ON THE HISTORY AND STATISTICS OF PHRENOLOGY IN SOUTHAMPTON. SIR, SOUTHAMPTON, 8th February 1837. I have read with much interest and satisfaction your work on the History and Statistics of Phrenology, particularly great part of the second section, and, upon the whole, it is a very judicious and useful publication. There is only one thing I regret in it, which is the note at page 109, stating that, amongst other places, you had received no reply to your circular from Southampton. I can explain this, as I am a member of a phrenological class where your circular was read, and directions given as to answering it. We at that time (in June last) expected Dr Engledue of Portsmouth to deliver two lectures here, and we wished to defer answering your questions till after that had taken place; but the worthy lecturer was, after all, unable to attend, and we have not yet had the pleasure of hearing him. In the mean time, Mr Stebbing was requested to reply to your letter by stating this reason, and inquiring if you could await the result; he, however, sent the letter by a private hand, and it appears you did not get it in sufficient time for the purposes of your publication. I believe the first phrenologist in Southampton, at least the first that I knew, was Mr S. C-, a very reflecting, studious, and sensible young man, with whose acquaintance I have been |